I'll be straight about why I were over Denby Dale way: since the Layby Pair in October 2021 — numbers 198 and 199, the only pair the register has ever taken — I've kept half an eye on that side of the district, and the notebook admits as much. It's not superstition. It's just that where shoes have been, shoes sometimes are. That's as far as the theory goes and I'll not take it further.
The find were under the viaduct, against the second pier from the road. Left boot, black, ankle sort, laces in but undone. A dry morning, cool in the shadow of the arches as you'd expect, pigeons above, all of which the notebook records, the pigeons included, because sound is part of a place and the underneath of a viaduct is mostly pigeon.
Condition fair. Flask conditions good, though the notebook notes I drank it stood up, as there were nowhere clean to sit — the underneath of a viaduct is also mostly not somewhere you put a stool, and I hadn't brought it anyway. Three photographs, all came out. The Denby Dale viaduct is a grand thing and photographs of a boot against a pier that size do put the boot in its place, which is small. That's not a criticism of the boot. We're all small under a viaduct. It went in the register the same size as everything else, though, which is the point of a register. Equal treatment, boot by boot. I had a look at the pie stone in the village on the way back, as you do at Denby Dale, and were home well before tea.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.